1920.] 



Increasing Basic Slag Supplies. 



249 



if favoured by a wise national policy, might well reach 9,000,000 

 acres. If, however, we adopt the more conservative figure of 

 8,500,000 acres under grain, we should even then increase our 

 home supplies by 12 to 14 per cent. An increase of this amount 

 would not only substantially diminish our foreign purchases, 

 but would tend to reduce fluctuations in price ; for, in spite of 

 the abuse which we bestow on our British cHmate, it seems to 

 me that our own harvests may well fluctuate less in amount 

 than the average of the exportable surplus of the harvests 

 from which we must draw our future supplies. This is not the 

 time to discuss the prospects of our future wheat supply, and 

 I cannot pretend to have an expert knowledge of the wheat 

 trade ; but when I look to the sources from which our supplies 

 were drawn in the past, to the effect which war has had upon 

 the soils and the labour that produced our wheat, and to the great 

 fluctuations in yield due to climate, it does not seem to me that 

 a nation which depends so largely as we have done in the past 

 on " exportable surpluses," can escape great fluctuations in 

 the price of bread. 



Occasional high prices, even frequent high prices, will not 

 in themselves secure a permanent addition to the area under 

 tillage. Other measures are called for, and among the most 

 important is an effort to increase the output of basic slag, so 

 that the quality of our grass land may be improved. 



To the steel maker the slag which he produces is no doubt 

 a secondary consideration, but I hope that his concentration 

 on improvements in the manufacture of steel will leave him 

 with time and inclination to bestow attention on processes 

 by which the quality and output of basic slag may be increased. 

 I have endeavoured to direct attention to the national import- 

 ance of basic slag, and I hope I have succeeded in indicating 

 that its manufacture in not merely of interest to the farmer as 

 a means of providing a profitable manure for his pastures, but 

 that it has a direct bearing on the future of the bread supply 

 of those engaged in the steel industry and of their fellows in 

 our other industries. The conditions affecting the food supply 

 of the industrial classes are very difterent from what they were 

 in 1820, but let us not forget that they are also very different 

 from what they were in 1914. The extent to which our 

 urban population may be driven to rely for their supplies 

 of food on the soils of this country cannot be foreseen. We 

 must not too confidently assume that all that we ask for 

 will be supplied by other countries. There may stiU be 

 hungry forties " ahead of us. 



